Lazare was crying. He was really crying. Open mouthed, Paige cast a spell on herself to conceal her presence to the guards and the elf. She had to give him credit. So he wasn't fearless after all.

The witch stepped out of the shadows, simply observing the conversation going on. When none of them turned to look her way, she was satisfied that her enchantments had worked. But the question was: what now? There wasn't any point of staying, but she was anxious to listen to the rest of the exchange.

There was no doubt about it, Lazare was definitely faking. He was doing a remarkably convincing job, though. How the hell does a person fake tears? a part of Racha's brain shrieked. And the guard had definitely bought it. At the mention of Achiel's name, however, the young man nearly jumped out of his skin. It also didn't hurt that Lazare had also mentioned Aliena Wytham's name in the same sentence.

"I - Madame de Saint-Clair, of course - well, I suppose it wouldn't be too much of a breach of protocol..." the young man stammered, fumbling with the hem of his cloak. "Very well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt..."

"Thank you," Lazare said gratefully, wiping his eyes again as the guard opened the door. However, the others were going to need to distract the guard if they were going to get in as well.

"I can do a distraction spell..." Lei murmured, giving a grin. "My dad did it once. Makes you lose focus if you look at a certain spot or certain object. I could cast it at us, and he wouldn't be able to look in our direction without suddenly losing track of what he's thinking..."

"We don't have time to discuss this," Racha said impatiently, although she had to grin at Nicholas' quip. Lazare was already stepping through. "Too late. Yo, you'd better tell me what happens, alright? Run for the door when I move."

And with that she hurled herself straight at the guard, crashing into him and throwing them both into the opposite wall, despite the nurse's instructions to rest.

Lazare went straight up to the inner door of the headmistress' office. He had seen the commotion behind him with the guard, and he had a pretty good idea who was behind it, even though technically Racha was still cloaked by the sorcerers' spells. Without her intervention, the elf knew, the guard would actually likely have stayed behind and kept an eye on him. Making a mental note of it, Lazare then put it out of his mind, and trained his aural senses on the conversation within.

"...were supposed to be people there for them," Linde replied wearily, as though she had repeated this many times. "Alistair, Elise, and Cebrián were instructed -"

"But those weren't carried out either," came the level voice of Lazare's mother. "Only three teachers left behind to defend so many underaged children? Really, Headmistress, I must protest this lack of organization. Whatever the situation may have been, surely that doesn't lower the priority of the school."

Meanwhile, the cloaking spells on Racha were beginning to wear off just as she got up off of the guard. She had managed to knock him out accidentally when they had crashed into the wall, and no way in hell was she going to be caught with an unconscious body on her hands. Thinking quickly, she propped him up into a sitting position against the wall, making him look like he had fallen asleep on the job. That done, she quickly headed back to the dining hall to retrieve Alex's soup before heading back to the hospital wing, barely managing to avoid several more officials on her way. Plus, now she was sore again.

Keeping well out of Saint-Clair's way, but still within easy hearing range of the conversation, Nicholas suddenly went still and became perfectly poised kneeled by the wall. He caught on to the conversation, and it appeared there was a serious discussion going on about the security of the school.

Lei had darted in behind Nico, concern for Racha filling him as he stopped beside Nico. Seeing as Racha's spell had weakened, he took care to renew the ones still in place, careful to make sure the professors didn't sense them.

Paige's mouth dropped open when the guards were thrown aside by a seemingly invisible force. There were a few hisses, and from Paige's hearing, they were unmistakingly from students. What were they thinking? She probably knew them too. Only wizards could only conjure a cloaking spell like such. She double checked to make sure the guards weren't seriously injured, and stole a glance through the doors ajar.

Without hesitation, she crept inside. And tripped over someone. "The fu--" the girl managed to stay light and on the tips of her toes, but her stumbles roused suspicion. "Who's there?" She revealed herself by allowing the spell to falter, hoping she would have an idea who she was dealing with.

Lazare half-turned to shoot a silencing glare at Paige. "Shut up, would you? I'm out of eye drops. I can't cry us all out of this one." All previous traces of emotion gone, he turned back to the doors, listening intently. The voices had broken out in arguing, all of them talking at once.

The next audible voice belonged to Aliena Wytham. "Please, everyone, we cannot afford to debate the fine merits of this with each other right now," she said, her voice cutting through everyone else's heated conversations. "For now, the measures will remain as they were before. Classes and and all extracurricular activities will be canceled temporarily. No student is to leave the buildings without an adult. We may also consider putting guards of some kind in front of the door - no, Achiel, not dragons - and we will need to find new professors. Two of them, is that right?"

"Yes," Linde replied. "Astronomy and English. However, we have already managed to find a replacement for our English professor."

How could they have found a new English teacher so quickly...? It's only been...Nicholas felt that, even in his own thoughts, the words were caught. It had only been mere hours since Professors Mackinnon and Zann died. The head of his own species, the Elves, and the head of Racha's, the werewolves.

However, Nicholas hardly even flinched or even moved. He kept in his position, waiting and listening for more.

Bianca was beside Eilin, listening intently to the conversation going on in the office. She frowned the whole time, partly because she wasn't really in terms with the idea of sneaking on the teachers like this, and partly because of the info they gave.

"They've...already found one?" Eilin whispered blankly. She couldn't believe that they had found a replacement so quickly. Her heart was beating quickly at the fact that they were eavesdropping on the headmistress.

Oh, it was Saint-Clair....Wait. Someone else had knocked over the guards, but it wasn't Lazare. Paige had been watching Lazare the whole time. With widened eyes, Paige shook her head and pressed her back against the wall again.

"I could probably cry," she muttered under her breath. She sighed. The students would rejoice of the fact of no classes. They could spend time with their friends. Where was Paige? Alone. The girl frowned, squeezing her eyes tightly. She waited for what the professors would say next.

She jumped at the noise of someone else speaking. Two. How many people were even here?

Lei hushed the others in annoyance. While he wasn't personally affected, he could only imagine if it had been his adviser. However, he refrained from patting Nicholas' shoulder, instead opting to listen intently. Anything involving dragons and the new professor was worth listening to.

"That doesn't solve the problem entirely, however," Linde was saying in response to another teacher's question. "We need one more professional, educated, and full-time professor, not just any volunteer who sends a mail-in application."

A new woman answered. "Actually I believe I can help you with that." A palpable hush fell over the room. Outside, Lazare strained closer to hear what they were saying. "I believe if you could spare me for one academic year, Headmistress Linde should have ample time to find a more suitable replacement."

"The department can manage with one fewer person," another male voice chipped in. "Besides, special circumstances like this happen so rarely anyway that we spend most of our time lounging around the office."

"And as certain professors might recall, she graduated at the top of our class," a third man added. "Best exam scores of the year. And to think I only came in second." A low chuckle of laughter spread through the room.

Lei's eyes narrowed. Their new professor would be a Circus worker? "I really don't like the sound of that..." he muttered. He never liked those kind of people, especially when he had to call them by their proper titles. Stupid officials and their high and mighty attitude.

Eilin's brows raised. She hoped this woman had the qualifications that a professor would need, though no one would be able to replace their usual professor. Eilin pressed her ear closer to the door to get a better listen in at the conversation, and maybe figure out who this woman was.

"That has been taken care of, for the time being," Linde replied. "The tear appeared in an area about 35 miles outside of the school grounds, so we were forced to dispatch most of our staff to deal with it. The manticore was the only thing that got away – it must have been the first one through. We must have crossed paths at some point. It probably missed us by no more than a few miles."

"We're still not sure how the tear originated, or who was controlling the golems," Garland added.

"Which means you'll probably need to send someone in periodically to check in," the woman who had volunteered finished. "And I believe I could serve that dual role quite well."

The voices within broke out in conversation once more, but most of it was thoughtful this time. Finally, the Head of the Council spoke up again. "If that is all, I believe we can wrap up this meeting." With the scraping of chairs and the rustling of cloaks, professors and officials stood, their footsteps approaching the door.

Lazare stepped back quickly and sat down on one of the chairs in the lounge-like hallway, composing his face into an expression of mingled confusion, grief, and blank shock. It was a shame that he had run out of eye drops, but hopefully his eyes were still watery and red-rimmed enough from the previous dose that it would look like he had just managed to get himself under control.